“I’m very confident that they’ll be in Montreal next year": Canadian Open Director speaks on Sinner and Alcaraz withdrawal

The director of the Canadian Open, Karl Hale, stated that he is confident that he will have Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz for the next edition of the tournament. This year's edition—held in Toronto in the men's category—had the unfortunate absence of the two best players in the world, both by their own decision.

It was not injuries that forced Sinner and Alcaraz to withdraw from the tournament, but rather an adjustment to their schedules. After playing in the Wimbledon final—in which the Italian won his fourth major title, defeating his great rival—both players opted to extend their rest.

The North American swing always offers a busy time of the year for European players, who must travel for nearly two months to North America to attend their commitments there, with the major events being the Canadian Open, Cincinnati Open, and US Open.

Starting this year, the decision was made to expand the draws of both Masters 1000s that are part of the US Open Series tournaments, which extended the duration to three weeks combined. Adding another week to the competition implies less time to rest in the already packed schedule of the stars.

After a long European tour that culminated at Wimbledon, the hardcourt swing quickly began with not much time to rest for the players. For example, Taylor Fritz, a semifinalist at SW19, ended his participation in London on July 11 and had 12 days until his return to the courts in the first round of the DC Open—a tournament that had started a couple of days earlier but where Fritz had a bye.

Since then, Fritz is already on his 10th match, after reaching the quarterfinals in Washington and the semifinals in Toronto, in addition to having already started his campaign at the Cincinnati Open. Considering his aspirations at the US Open—where he reached the final last year—there will not be much time to recover for the American until the US Open is over, whose men's final will be played on September 7. That is, practically two months fully focused on competition.

However, the difference is that Fritz is from the USA, so an early elimination in any of these tournaments would not be a big problem to get home quickly to prepare for the next tournament and arrive fresher, a luxury that European tennis players cannot afford at this time of the year.

Sinner and Alcaraz—who surely arrive with aspirations of reaching the final in every tournament they play—decided to take some time off and, despite it resulting in a monetary fine and loss of points at the end of the year, they chose to be absent from the Canadian Open to recover physically and mentally for the next matches and tournaments.

The decision—strategic for them—hurt the tournament, which had previously suffered from the mandatory withdrawals of Jack Draper and Novak Djokovic due to injury. However, without Sinner and Alcaraz, the draw looked somewhat lackluster for a Masters 1000, counting on only two players within the top-6.

"As far as the top player withdrawals, it’s definitely not what we want,” mentioned the tournament director in a recent interview with Nothing Major Podcast. “Draper is out for Cincinnati as well in the season. Novak is out for Cincinnati as well. So those players were injuries. I think Carlos and Sinner have to look at our tour, the ATP Tour, and commit to these majors.”

“We’re in talks with them to ensure that going forward that they’ll be participating in our event. Also next year there’s 3 weeks between Wimbledon and Montreal. Where this year, it was two weeks. It was a really tight turnaround.” “The calendar is an issue. It’s too long. There are too many tournaments. Too many 250s and 500s. The Saudi event is coming. So we’re talking about how that will look going forward.”

“I think they’ll be announcing very shortly what the Saudi event will look like and then the tour at large.” “I actually told them [Sinner and Alcaraz], because we were in talks when they withdrew, we talked to them for several days and then I said ‘Okay, we’re here… 2026 you’re gonna be in Montreal. Just make sure that happens.’ I’m very, very confident that they’ll be in Montreal next year and I don’t think it’s an issue because of what we’re doing with the tours and the bonus pools and all of those things and also the 3 weeks between our tournaments next year.”